Post Archive by Month

In a July 2016 FBI interview, “Clinton [will state] that she received no instructions or direction regarding the preservation or production of records from [the] State [Department] during the transition out of her role as secretary of state in early 2013. Furthermore, Clinton believed her work-related emails were captured by her practice of sending emails to State employees’ official State email accounts.”

Like many other Clinton aides, Pagliano leaves the department the same month Clinton ends her term as secretary of state. Pagliano was secretly being paid for managing Clinton’s private server since May 2009. He remains a State Department contractor doing work on “mobile and remote computing functions.” (The Washington Post, 9/5/2015)

Pagliano also starts working for Gartner, a global IT [information technology] company, though it’s unclear how much he works for Gartner and how much for the State Department.

He will lose his State Department contractor status some time after September 2015, when he pleads the Fifth Amendment before a Congressional committee. (The Daily Caller, 3/3/2016)

Most of her top aides leave the State Department around the same time, such as Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, Jake Sullivan, and Philippe Reines, while Patrick Kennedy remains. (The New York Times, 8/13/2013)

When Clinton ends her tenure as secretary of state, she is required by law to turn over all of her work-related documents to the State Department, including emails, but she fails to do so.

Clinton says farewell as secretary of state on February 1, 2013. (Credit: Polaris)

A May 2016 State Department inspector general’s report will conclude, “Secretary Clinton should have preserved any federal records she created and received on her personal account… At a minimum, [she] should have surrendered all emails dealing with department business before leaving government service and, because she did not do so, she did not comply with the department’s policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act.”

The report will note that at least she turned over 30,000 emails in December 2014, 21 months later. However, the report will also conclude that the emails she gave then are “incomplete,” because many of her work-related emails have since been discovered through other means, such as being found in other email inboxes. For instance, although her tenure began on January 21, 2009, and she started using her email account by January 28, no emails received prior to March 17, 2009, were turned over, nor were any emails sent prior to April 12, 2009. (US Department of State, 5/25/2016)

State Department officials will later say that Clinton is required to go through a “read-off” debriefing around the time she ends her term as secretary of state on February 1, 2013. In the debriefing, security officials would remind her of her duty to return all classified documents, including ones where the classification status is uncertain. This would include her emails stored on her private server.

Former Diplomatic Security Service official Raymond Fournier will later say, “Once she resigned as secretary, she needed to return classified documents and other government-owned documents, which in this case would have included the server.” The debriefing would include her signing a nondisclosure agreement, but so far no such document has emerged. It also is unknown if the required debriefing took place, and if it did, why she didn’t turn her emails over at that time. Fournier will comment, “She’s in big, big trouble.” (The New York Post, 8/23/2015)

All State Department officials are required to sign a form when they leave office stating that they returned all their work-related documents back to the government. Although Clinton becomes a private citizen after ending her term as secretary of state on February 1, 2013, there is no evidence she signs such a form. Those who sign the OF-109 form acknowledge they could be subject to “criminal penalties” for not turning over the documents.

In March 2015, Jen Psaki, a State Department spokesperson, will say, “We have reviewed Secretary Clinton’s official personnel file and administrative files and do not have any record of her signing the [form]. […] I think we’re fairly certain she did not.” Psaki also notes that Clinton’s predecessors as secretary of state also don’t seem to have signed the form.

A State Department manual declares that “a separation statement will be completed whenever an employee is terminating employment,” but Psaki says there is no penalty for not signing the form. (Politico, 3/17/2015)

All State Department officials are required to sign the “separation statement,” known as the OF-109 form. Those who sign the OF-109 form acknowledge they could be subject to “criminal penalties” for not turning over the documents.

In 2015, the Daily Caller will sue the State Department for several OF-109 forms. They will be given a form with Mills’ name on it, but with the date and signature spaces left blank. Mills used a private Yahoo email account for at least some of her government work.

A State Department official will neither explain the discrepancy nor confirm that Mills did not sign the agreement.

At the end of Clinton’s tenure of secretary of state in February 2013, her private server is still being managed by Bryan Pagliano and Justin Cooper, with Pagliano doing most of the technical work and Cooper doing most of the customer service work. The management of the server will be taken over by the Platte River Networks (PRN) computer company in June 2013. It seems possible that the server is not as actively managed in the months in between.

Justin Cooper testifies to the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee on September 13, 2016. (Credit: Alex Wong / Getty Images)

In September 2016, Cooper will be questioned by a Congressional committee. Representative Jason Chaffetz (R) will ask him, “[Y]ou stepped back from the day-to-day activities with the Clintons about the time of the transition, is that correct? As she left office?”

He will reply, ‘Yes.”

When asked about his knowledge of what happened to server security after the hacker known as Guccifer broke into the email account of a Clinton confidant and publicly exposed Clinton’s email address on the server in March 2013, Cooper will reply, “At that point in time I was transitioning out of any role or responsibility with the server as various teams were selecting Platte River Networks to take over the email services and I don’t know that I had any sort of direct response.”

Additionally, when Cooper will be asked about his contact with PRN, he will say, “My interaction was handing over user names and passwords and that was the totality of the interaction I’ve had. I’ve never had interaction with them.” (US Congress, 9/13/2016)

It is not known if Pagliano similarly cuts down his involvement with managing the server during this time, since he has refused to publicly comment about his experiences. The FBI has mentioned nothing about the management of Pagliano or Cooper during this time period. (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/2/2016)

Clinton at the main annual Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) meeting, on September 22, 2014 in New York City. (Source: John Moore / Getty Images)

As soon as Clinton’s term as secretary of state ends, the “memorandum of understanding” between the Clinton Foundation and the Obama White House also comes to an end. As a result, the Clinton Foundation resumes accepting increased donations from foreign governments. For instance, shortly after Clinton resigns, the foundation receives a $2 million donation from a conglomerate run by a member of China’s National People’s Congress.

The Wall Street Journal will report that news of such donations from foreign governments “prompted criticism from Republicans and some Democrats, who said it represented a conflict for a potential future president,” given the anticipation that Hillary Clinton would run for president again in 2016. (The Wall Street Journal, 3/19/2015)

United Arab Emirates and Germany begin donating to the foundation for the first time, and other countries such as Saudi Arabia resume donating after holding off during Clinton’s time as secretary of state. (February 25, 2015)

Huma Abedin on her cell phone in Londonderry, New Hampshire, on January 3, 2016. (Credit: Rick Friedman / Corbis)

All State Department officials are required to sign the “separation statement” when they leave the department, known as the OF-109 form. However, Abedin has a private email address (huma@clintonemail.com) on the same private server that Clinton does, and when she leaves the department in February 2013 she does not turn over any of her emails from it, including work-related emails.

Her emails will not be handed over until a couple of years later, after various lawsuits and investigations. In signing the form, Abedin acknowledges she could be subject to “criminal penalties” for lying on the document.